


My Mother

by Name_Pending



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, R plus L equals J
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 20:51:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11813961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Name_Pending/pseuds/Name_Pending
Summary: Sansa looks a lot like her mother. She wonders sometimes if it bothers Jon.





	My Mother

Sometimes when she looked in the mirror she could see her mother staring back at her. 

Sansa had always had the Tully look rather than the Stark, but as she grew into a woman it became more and more obvious that she was her mother’s daughter. She had the same red hair, the same colour and shape of eyes, the same lips. Her cheekbones were slightly less defined, but she was fairly certain that that was due to age - Catelyn’s had almost certainly been plumper of face when she was young, before she had to manage the stress that accompanied a castle and five children.

She tried to wear her hair the way her mother did, at least some of the time. Other times she favoured traditional northern styles - as befit the Lady of Winterfell - but she sometimes gave into styling her red locks into the typical Riverlands fashions that her mother had never truly abandoned. 

Yes, Sansa looked very like her mother - so long as one didn’t look at her too long. Looking too long changed the image.

It made it more obvious that Sansa’s eyes were often void of emotion, the way her mother’s had never been. She carried herself in a completely different way, shrouding herself in the same dignity and manners but never abandoning the cold exterior that Catelyn would have considered impolite. Sansa was more solemn nowadays, colder than she ever remembered her mother being. 

She wondered if her half-brother - her cousin - would agree.

Sansa remembered her mother and Jon Snow together. They had never gotten along, and Catelyn had always been remarkably cold to him, even as a child, compared to the adoration and warmth she reserved for her own children. Sansa had noticed it always but had only recently begun to dislike it. She understood her mother’s attitude but after all that Joffrey, Cersei and Ramsay had done to her, Sansa had begun to wish that the biggest slight to her honour had been an unfaithful husband. 

Now, her thoughts about Jon and her mother revolved around different issues. As a child, she had sometimes wished her half-brother away, hoping that the arguments between her parents that she occasionally overheard would stop completely if he vanished. Now, she only worried that Jon would hold it against Sansa herself. 

It was probably hard for him, she guessed, to look at her and see a young Catelyn Stark standing with him. Did it bother him that his closest advisor was his half-sister, turned cousin, who reminded him of the woman he had no warm memories of?

When she and Jon had first reunited, it had bothered her very little. When it became apparent that he was, in fact, her cousin - her true-blood Targaryen cousin, of all things - it started to bother her a little more. Because then she knew that her new and growing admiration of him did not have to be buried the way she had believed it would need to be. 

She and Jon had long since accepted their feelings for one another, although their relationship was in its early days - neither of them was comfortable taking things any faster than they were already. Sansa knew that most couples would have likely wed already, but she and Jon had no such plan yet, and had done little more than exchange chaste kisses. 

On her part, Ramsay had a lot to do with that. He had left her damaged and scarred, both inside and out, and the thought of letting a man inside her left her cold and frightened. She trusted Jon completely, but that didn’t change her body’s reaction to a man’s touch; it would be a long time, she knew, before she would be willing to lie with him.

And Jon had not pushed her. But why, she wondered? He was a good man and she knew he would not force himself on her, but he never even pushed. She hoped and prayed that he simply respected her, but deep down she had her doubts. 

She knew that Jon did not think less of her because of Ramsay - but did he think less of her because of Catelyn?

Did it bother him that he was involved with the daughter of the woman who had resented him so openly throughout his childhood? Did he see her when he looked at Sansa? Was that why he always pulled away from kisses so quickly, eyes averted?

The questions had been running through her mind for weeks. 

/

It was a stormy night when she finally gathered her courage and asked Jon about it. The two were inside a private chamber in Winterfell, huddled in furs by the fire. It was bitterly cold and had been a long day, yet they always tried to reserve some time every other night to simply enjoy each other’s company, and it had been days. 

Jon was rambling on about something about the Wall and what life had been like in the Night’s Watch - he often did, he talked about that more easily than she could talk about her past - when Sansa interrupted him.

“Does it bother you?” she asked, eyes firmly fixed on the flames. “That I look so much like my mother, I mean.”

There was a moment of silence and she glanced up to see Jon frowning at her the way he did when he was confused. 

“What?”

“I know you hear people talking, saying that we look like Eddard and Catelyn Stark” Sansa said quietly, meeting his eyes. “I told you once that I was awful to you. If I was awful, she was worse.”

Jon looked down, quite clearly uncomfortable. “Sansa...”

“It’s alright, Jon. You can say what you mean.”

“She was your mother” he said firmly, like that ended the discussion. 

Well, it wasn’t going to. 

“Jon, please, we said we were going to be honest with each other.” Sansa reached out and took his hand under the furs. “Does it bother you?”

“That you look like your mother? No.” He smiled half-heartedly. “Does it bother you that I look like mine?”

Sansa smiled faintly; after years thinking that Jon resembled their - her - father, it was still strange to know that he actually looked very like his mother. Her Aunt Lyanna must have been beautiful, Sansa was sure.

“That’s not the same” she murmured, squeezing his hand. “Your mother never glared at me across the table or made me feel unwelcome in my own home.”

Jon looked down, a sad expression on his face. “She had her reasons for disliking me.”

“Yes and all of them for nothing” Sansa said, sighing because she knew that it was no good wondering how things might have been had they all known that Ned Stark never fathered a bastard. “Jon, I’m serious. I know I look a lot like her. Does it … does it upset you?”

Jon’s expression was a blend of confusion, hurt and bewilderment. 

“You don’t, Sansa.”

“What?” She was puzzled; she did look like Catelyn, she knew that much was true. 

“You may look like your mother, but you’re not her” Jon clarified, idly playing with Sansa’s fingers. “You hold yourself differently. You’ve got the heart of winter in you. And you smile at me a hell of a lot more.”

He grinned at her at the end of his little speech, and Sansa smiled back, her heart breaking for him. Her mother must have smiled at him when he was child, surely? She was about to ask him, but thought the better of it.

“You’re sure?”

“I am. You’re not your mother, Sansa. You’re you. Your own person. I’ve known you since you were a baby, and I’ve never thought of you as a girl that looks like her mother. You just look like you. You look like Sansa Stark.” He looked startled suddenly. “Not that I’m saying your mother wasn’t… I mean, I’m sure she was...”

Sansa burst out laughing. She knew what he was trying to say, but he needn’t have bothered. She knew he wasn’t trying to insult her mother, he was just trying to prove to her that she and Catelyn were visibly similar but also very different people.

“I understand” she giggled - it felt so good to laugh!

Jon was a little flushed from embarrassment and the fire, but he grinned back at her, and then quickly leaned forward to press an innocent kiss to her lips. 

She knew that it was a distraction technique, but she didn’t care. Sansa pulled him back to her as he tried to pull back, taking his face in her hands and guiding his mouth to hers. She was not ready to do anything more than this, but a few light kisses were definitely wanted and enjoyable. It wasn’t even sexual, really; it was just comforting. It felt like Jon’s mouth could validate his words, and she could accept his honesty for what it was.

She looked like her mother and she always would, but Jon did not think the less of her for it. He just saw her. He saw her alone, saw her for who she was.

In time, that little fact alone would be enough to make her fall in love with him.


End file.
